1. Field of the Invention
Twenty-five years has now elasped since the present inventor commenced his development of a citrus fruit harvester. Basically his machines are of the self-propelled type and include a fruit picking panel of a plurality of spindles which are adapted to be pushed into the outer surface of a fruit bearing tree at a time when at least some of the spindles are rotating thereupon causing the fruit to be disengaged by the rotation of the various spindles cooperating with each other and with certain stationary spindles employed on the fruit picking panel. This inventor has obtained numerous patents on spindle arrangements, spindle constructions, and including a variety of features utilized on his developed spindles. The object always has been to obtain maximum fruit harvesting with a minimum of damage to the fruit and a minimum of damage to the trees being harvested. Although this inventor has come close to producing a machine which is commercially acceptable no commercial picking machine is yet being used by the citrus industry. Applicant believes that the multiple angular sections of his effectively gyrating spindles so reduce the solid surface effect of his panel of spindles that the spindles can easily penetrate into and around the branches of a citrus tree without causing any damage to the fruit and without breaking any branches. The spindles are such that the angles of disposition of the various sections thereof never push directly on a branch or on the fruit hanging on the tree but rather the branches and fruit are tenderly shifted to one side as the spindles penetrate into the tree to be harvested. And, once the spindles of the panel have penetrated the tree their continued rotation causes certain sections thereof to create a scissors action such that almost all of the fruit hanging in that area is successfully removed from attachment to the branches thereupon causing the harvester of this invention to harvest substantially all of the tree's fruit. Such a result of course compares very favorably to the manual picking of citrus fruit both from the standpoint of the percentage of fruit picked, the quality of fruit picked, and the economical aspects of mechanical fruit picking versus manual fruit picking.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The inventor's first patent in this field issued June 26, 1962 as U.S. Pat. No. 3,040,507. This is a basic patent in the mechanical harvesting of citrus fruit. Since that time this inventor has had U.S. Pat. No. 3,129,551 which issued Apr. 21, 1964, U.S. Pat. No. 3,197,952 which issued Aug. 3, 1965, U.S. Pat. No. 3,222,855 which issued Dec. 14, 1965, U.S. Pat. No. 3,458,982 which issued Aug. 5, 1969, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,864,899 which issued Feb. 11, 1975. All of the patents excepting the first relate to spindles and their construction as stated above. The last of the patents issuing on Feb. 11, 1975 concerned spindles with cams thereon for engaging and disengaging the fruit as the panel spindles penetrated the fruit bearing tree. This device operated quite satisfactorily except for the fact that the spindles presented too much of a solid mass to penetrate the tree and the substantial size of the cam rotors tended to damage tree branches as the spindles penetrated into the outer surface of the tree. The present device has been designed to open up the spindles and let them easily penetrate the tree without seriously striking or causing damage to the branches or fruit that the spindles may strike in the tree entry.
Another patent which may have pertinence in regard to the present invention is U.S. Pat. No. 3,701,242 which issued to Townsend on Oct. 31, 1972. This Townsend patent shows a rotating finger-like spindle which by having a uniform offset therein can be said to be gyrating. However the Townsend gyrating spindle works in cooperation with a scoop and must be manually inserted by the operator to pick one piece of fruit at a time. Townsend does not have a plurality of angular offsets in cooperating spindles which together form and create a scissors action in the removal of fruit from their tree attachments.